Venezuela MPs in punch-up over disputed election

Several legislators were left bloodied and bruised, with both opposition and pro-government lawmakers accusing each other of starting the fight.
A measure was earlier passed denying MPs the right to speak until they recognised Nicolas Maduro as president.
Official results show he narrowly beat opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, who has demanded a full recount.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) - which has rejected Mr Capriles' demand - on Monday said Mr Maduro had won by 1.49 percentage points, or fewer than 225,000 votes.
This came after the council had amended the final result, taking into account votes cast abroad.
In all, 99.79% of the votes have now been counted.
Earlier figures had shown a victory of 1.8 percentage points for Mr Maduro, who stood in the poll as the chosen successor of the late President Hugo Chavez. 
'Being silenced'

Julio Borges appeared on TV with facial bruises after the clashes

On Tuesday, the opposition said a number of its lawmakers were attacked and hurt in the parliament - the National Assembly.
One of the MPs, Julio Borges, later appeared on a local TV station with facial bruises.
"They can beat us, jail us, kill us, but we will not sell out our principles," Mr Borges was quoted as saying.
"These blows give us more strength."
The opposition said it was being "silenced" by National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello.
"I am going to ask you: Mr Deputy, do you recognise Nicolas Maduro?" Mr Cabello asked one of them. "If you say no, you don't get to speak in the assembly."
Pro-government representatives blamed the opposition for starting the clashes.
"Today again I had to defend [Hugo Chavez's] legacy," lawmaker Odalis Monzon was quoted as saying by Reuters.


Mr Capriles has demanded a vote-by-vote recount, but the CNE said it would be legally impossible to carry out.
It has, however, agreed to carry out a partial audit, which is expected to take until June. During the audit, 56% of the votes cast will be examined.
The CNE says the remaining 44% had been checked immediately after the election.
On Monday, Mr Capriles said Mr Maduro had "illegitimately stolen the presidency",
He has until 6 May to lodge his request with the Supreme Court contesting the election result.
Mr Capriles said he had "no doubt that this will end up before an international body".
Both Mr Capriles and Mr Maduro have urged their supporters to turn out for separate demonstrations on 1 May, sparking fears the two camps could clash.
Mr Maduro on Monday said he had changed the route of his march because he "did not want problems".
But the opposition says it continues to be targeted by the government, citing the arrest on Saturday of retired Gen Antonio Rivero as proof.
The opposition politician has been charged with criminal instigation and criminal association, after prosecutors blamed him for outbreaks of post-election violence.
Relatives of Gen Rivero says he is on a hunger strike in protest. 

Greeks stage 24-hour anti-austerity general strike

The 24-hour action is expected to severely disrupt public services, including transport and hospitals.
The organisers are demanding an end to spending cuts and tax rises.
The government says the measures are badly needed to lead Greece out of a deep financial crisis and six straight years of recession.
The cabinet of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras says the policies are part of continuing moves to ensure more bailout money from international creditors.
Cautious optimism The 24-hour strike officially began at midnight on Tuesday to mark labour day. May 1 is technically not a public holiday in Greece this year, as that has been moved to next Tuesday - after Orthodox Easter.
The BBC's Mark Lowen in Athens says public transport will be disrupted, ferries halted and hospitals will work on skeleton staff.
But he says it remains to be seen how big Tuesday's rallies will be, as there have been far fewer strikes and protests this year, and there is a feeling the civil unrest is beginning to die down.
Nevertheless, demonstrations are planned across the country, with police on alert for a repeat of past violence.
The two largest unions - GSEE and ADEDY - have said that the action will focus on demands to end austerity.

 

 May Day rallies are being held across the globe - including here in Tokyo

They say that government measures have led to the country's record unemployment rate of 27%, including almost 60% among young people.
Mr Samaras has defended his policies, insisting that this year of recession will be the country's last.
Our correspondent says that more than 20 general strikes have failed to halt the cuts, and the government feels emboldened by the cautious optimism of its international creditors.
Nearly 3bn euros (£2.5bn; $4bn) of bailout money were approved this week, with another 6bn euros set to come on 13 May.
Since 2010, the European Union and the IMF have promised more than 200bn euros in lending for Greece. Talk of exit from the eurozone has receded.
However, our correspondent says the optimism has not reached the streets, where the mood remains dire given the record unemployment levels.
Other May Day action has been taking place across in the world:

• Protesters demanding the execution of factory bosses over the deaths of hundreds in a recent building collapse in Bangladesh marched in their thousands in the capital, Dhaka
• Rallies have been called in more than 80 cities in Spain
• Thousands of Filipinos marched in Manila demanding the government protect jobs and improve worker contracts
• Cambodian workers rallied in Phnom Penh, calling for higher wages
• Some 55,000 marched in Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, protesting at low wages and outsourcing
• Trade unions held demonstrations in Tokyo, with calls for more youth employment one of the main focuses

Cuban opposition group Ladies in White collect prize

Several Ladies in White made the trip to Brussels to collect the award

Members of the Cuban opposition group Ladies in White have collected the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in Brussels.

They were awarded the prize by the European Parliament in 2005, but Cuba barred them from leaving the communist-run island to collect it.
The abolition of exit permits by the Cuban government in January made it possible for the women to travel.
They were given the prize for their campaign to free 75 jailed dissidents.
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought is awarded annually by the European Parliament to individuals or organisations who have dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedom. It is named after the late Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov.
In 2012, it went to Iranian activists Jafar Panahi and Nasrin Sotoudeh.
As she accepted the award on behalf of the group, Lady in White Laura Labrada said they had never lost faith that one day they would be able to collect the prize.
"We are mothers, wives, daughters and sisters of Cubans who find themselves in prison in Cuba for exercising the most sacred human right: to live according to one's own conscience," she said.
Ms Labrada collected the prize on behalf of her mother, co-founder of the Ladies in White Laura Pollan, who died in 2011

She was joined by other Ladies in White at the ceremony.

"You are the symbol of resistance against the Cuban government, and thousands of Cubans support you inside and outside the country," said the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz.
But in Havana, the Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister, Abelardo Moreno, suggested that other Cubans were more worthy of the award.
"I ask myself, would it not be worth giving prizes to the work of Cuban doctors in Haiti, for example?" he said.


'No change'
The Ladies in White was founded by the wives, sisters and friends of 75 jailed Cuban activists, who were rounded up and sentenced to long prison terms in 2003 as part of a crackdown on the opposition movement.
Dressed in white, the women march in silence in the Cuban capital, Havana, every Sunday, defying Cuba's ban on organised opposition and street demonstrations.
They are routinely detained and their protests broken up, but they say their protests have yielded results. All 75 prisoners they campaigned for have been released.
The Ladies continue their protest, now demanding that the convictions of the 75 be officially overturned.

Before travelling to Brussels to collect the prize, Ms Labrada told the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Havana that they still suffered harassment at the hands of the Cuban police.
"The arrests continue. It's true the time in detention is less, but we're still repressed, still detained - and in big numbers. Just for thinking differently... This has not changed," she said.
The Cuban authorities say that the group is in the pay of the United States and forms part of Washington's "decades-old effort to undermine Cuba's socialist revolution".

Lloyds' branch sale to Co-op falls through.

   Lloyds' branch sale to Co-op falls through.

The planned sale of 632 UK bank branches by Lloyds Banking Group to the Co-op group has fallen through.


The Co-op blamed the continued economic downturn and tougher regulatory environment imposed on banks.
Lloyds said it will now seek to sell the branches as a stand-alone bank through a stock market listing.
It had been hoped that the Co-op's purchase of the branches would create a bigger competitor to the main high street banks.
Lloyds' chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio said: "We are disappointed that the Co-operative Group is unable to complete this transaction."

The sales of the branches, known as Project Verde, was demanded by European regulators as the price for being bailed out by the UK government during the financial crisis.
The Lloyds statement said: "The Co-operative Group's board has decided that they can no longer proceed with a purchase of the Verde business given their view of the impact of the current economic environment, the worsened outlook for economic growth and the increasing regulatory requirements on the financial services sector in general."


During the summer the branches will be branded as TSB Bank, and the group will operate as a separate business within Lloyds ahead of a sale.
The Co-op's chief executive, Peter Marks, said: "After detailed and thorough consideration of all aspects of the Verde transaction, we have decided, at this time, that it is not in the best interests of our members to proceed with the transaction.

"Against the backdrop of the current economic environment, the worsened outlook for economic growth and the increasing regulatory requirements on the financial services sector in general, the Verde transaction would not currently deliver a suitable return for our members within a reasonable timeframe and with an acceptable level of risk."

The BBC's business editor, Robert Peston, said the Co-op's decision was a blow for the Treasury, which has been backing attempts to create powerful competitors to the UK's big high street banks. He said that the Co-op will now review the future of its banking business.


Challenger banks Lloyds, which is 39%-owned by the government, had a deadline of November 2013 to complete the sale in order to meet European Commission competition rules. But there have been reports over the past few months that the Co-op was going cool on the acquisition.
A flotation is unlikely to be possible until the second half of 2014, which would mean the UK government and Lloyds asking Brussels to extend its end-2013 deadline for the sale.
Co-op agreed in 2012 to buy the branches.
This involved the potential transfer of 4.6 million customers, including 3.5 million in England and Wales and the remainder in Scotland.


Customers in England and Wales had already received letters telling them of the move and giving them the option to stay with Lloyds. This information is still relevant, as customers of the branches being sold will still become customers of the new TSB Bank.
The aborted takeover would have created Britain's seventh-biggest bank with about 5% of personal current accounts and mortgage market and about 10% of the branch network.
A Treasury spokesman described the Co-op's move as "a commercial matter." However, he stressed that government remained committed to encouraging so-called "Challenger" banks to increase competition on the high street.

Boston blast victim identified as Chinese student

Boston blast victim identified as Chinese student

Mourning, resolve and quest for answers after deadly Boston Marathon bombs

A 29-year-old woman, remembered by her mother for her "heart of gold." A Boston University graduate student from China who'd gone to enjoy the marathon's finish with two classmates. An 8-year-old boy, cheering on runners with his family.

All of them, gone.

Their lives were snuffed out by twin blasts at the tail end of Monday's Boston Marathon. Thirteen others -- out of 183 hospitalized -- had limbs amputated, according to hospital officials. The question is: Why?

The victims: Promising lives lost in tragedy

More than a day later, authorities don't have an answer. Unlike after the September 11, 2001, attacks, no one claimed responsibility for this terrorist attack. No one had been identified as a suspect. The attack came out of nowhere, with no threat. Just horror.

As Richard DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, put it Tuesday afternoon: "The range of suspects and motives remains wide open."

The two identical pressure-cooker bombs -- each with the capacity to hold six liters of liquid, according to a Boston law enforcement source -- blew up seconds and a short distance apart on Boston's Boylston Street. They contained BB-like pellets and nails, the FBI's DesLauriers said, causing even more damage.

Photos obtained by CNN, which were in a bulletin sent to federal law enforcement agencies, showed parts of a pressure cooker, a shredded black backpack and what appear to be metal pellets or ball bearings. Such evidence -- including a partial circuit board -- are headed to an FBI facility in Quantico, Virginia, where authorities will try to determine how the devices worked and cull out clues identifying the person or persons responsible.

More on the investigation into the bombings

Whatever investigators find, whenever they find it, it won't take away the pain. Scores who are not grieving loved ones are faced with a lengthy physical recovery. There's the psychological battle as well -- living with the memories of the deafening blasts, the carnage, the fear as they searched for loved ones.

Ron Brassard was one of them. One second, he was laughing and smiling. The next second, there was a roaring blast, originating from about 10 feet away, and he looked down to see a "puddle of blood." He later discovered a "chunk of the leg was just not there." His wife was hospitalized, too, and a friend lost both her legs.

Brassard told CNN's Anderson Cooper he is angry. But he's also not about to let this terror change him, any more than it already has.

"You can't let people control your life like that," Brassard said from his hospital bed. "You just can't."

Hundreds run toward carnage to help

The pressure wave from Monday's explosions in Boston's historic Copley Square whipped the once limp international flags straight out, as if they were caught in a hurricane.

Some runners said they thought the first blast was a celebratory cannon. By the second, there were no such illusions.

The scene on the ground was sheer horror. Blood and unconscious people were everywhere.

So, too, were people who went to help.

Boston heroes run to help

Some were spectators, like Carlos Arredondo. An affiliate of the Red Cross, he tended to a man who'd lost two of his limbs.

Dr. Natalie Stavas, a pediatric resident at Boston Children's Hospital, was near the home stretch of the race she was running with her father when she heard the blasts.

Despite having run 26 miles, she went over barriers and past policemen, until one stopped her. Stavas told CNN she told him she was a doctor and pleaded, "You have to let me help, you have to let me through."

She said she performed CPR on the first person she encountered. For the next two, she worked to halt their bleeding. Stavas stressed that there were hundreds of others doing whatever they could.

"It was horrific. It was the worst thing I've ever seen," Stavas said. "It was unbelievable."

Nails, metal beads found in patients

While authorities have given no indication they know who was behind the attack, they have offered details on the devices used.

DesLauriers, from the FBI, said the bombs were possibly placed in pressure cookers hidden inside a backpack or another black nylon bag. Another law enforcement official told CNN it was "likely but not certain" the bombs were on a timer, not set off remotely by a cell phone.

Experts see hallmarks of 'lone wolf' devices

Another federal law enforcement official said both bombs were small, and initial tests showed no C-4 or other high-grade explosive, suggesting the materials used in the attack were crude.

And deadly.

Those killed include 8-year-old Martin Richard, a resident of the city's Dorchester neighborhood whom babysitter Caitlin Doyle recalled as "just all-around a wonderful kid (with) a big, bright smile that no one could ever forget."

There was 29-year-old Krystle Campbell, who was "fun, outgoing (and) always there to help somebody," her grandmother Lillian Campbell said.

Lastly, there was the Boston University graduate student from China -- whom the school and Chinese consulate declined to identify by name. According to a LinkedIn profile, she graduated from a Chinese university with a degree in international economics and was set to earn her master's degree in mathematics and statistics in 2014 from B.U.

Others survived, thanks largely to the work of emergency personnel and volunteers on-site and scores of professionals in several world-class hospitals nearby.

Doctors removed more than a dozen nails from one patient, and three had been struck with metal beads slightly larger than BBs, said Dr. Ron Walls, the emergency medicine chairman at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Back in Copley Square, in the heart of Boston, investigators on Tuesday continued searching for any hint that might lead them to the perpetrator.

Authorities also pleaded for the public's help. Did they know of anyone who made a threat involving April 15 or the marathon? Did they hear explosions in a remote area, possibly as a test run? And did they spot anyone near the finish line dropping off what ended up being the two bombs?

Obama calls attack 'terror'

By 5 p.m. Tuesday, the FBI had gotten more than 2,000 tips, DesLauriers said. They'd also begun poring over scores of photos and videos from the scene.

"We are doing this methodically," he said, "... and with a sense of urgency."

Mayor: 'We will not let terror take us over'

At one point, 11 Boston-area hospitals had 23 people in critical condition and 40 listed as serious. There are still some fighting, with more surgeries planned. But there is progress. In fact, according to a CNN tally, at least 100 of the 183 people who received treatment were able to go home by Tuesday night.

How Boston and America recovers over the coming days, weeks and months remains to be seen.

As has happened before after such terror attacks, Tuesday saw authorities responding to alerts and threats -- in places like Dallas, Cleveland and New York -- that all proved to be unfounded.

Security in Los Angeles and New York has been stepped up in light of the Boston attack, and authorities in London are reviewing measures for that city's upcoming marathon.

Back in Massachusetts, one question is what becomes of the Boston Marathon -- the world's oldest annual marathon, dating to 1897, drawing more than 20,000 participants. Rather than shutting it down, officials promised to build the race back up.

"Next year's marathon will be even bigger and better," Gov. Deval Patrick.

That sense of defiance was echoed by Mayor Thomas Menino. Residents and visitors to the city might have to deal with more checks at transit stations and elsewhere. They might have to get used to seeing more authorities out and about. But they shouldn't change their attitudes, said the mayor.

"This tragedy is not going to stop Boston," Menino said. "We will not let terror take us over."

Major earthquake strikes south-east Iran

Major earthquake strikes south-east Iran


The epicentre of the 7.8-magnitude quake was near the south-eastern city of Khash, close to Pakistan.
The quake struck deep and in a remote region, apparently limiting casualties.
Iranian state TV said 27 people had been injured, but rowed back on early reports of deaths. However, more than 30 people were killed in Pakistan.
The Pakistani military has been mobilised to help with rescue efforts, officials said.
Two military helicopters carrying medical teams have been sent to the area and troops will support the relief efforts, they said.
The border area has since been shaken by several strong aftershocks.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the organisation stood ready to help "if asked to do so". The US has also offered assistance.







The earthquake struck in the province of Sistan Baluchistan at about 15:14 local time (10:44 GMT), close to the cities of Khash, which has a population of nearly 180,000, and Saravan, where 250,000 people live.
"The epicentre of the quake was located in the desert, and population centres do not surround it. There were no fatalities in the towns around the epicentre," an Iranian crisis centre official, Morteza Akbarpour, was quoted as saying by the Iranian news agency Isna.
The power of the tremor led to offices being evacuated in Karachi, Pakistan, in the Indian capital of Delhi, and in several Gulf cities.
Iranian state TV initially reported that 40 people had been killed, and one Iranian official was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying hundreds of deaths were expected.

               


Iran's Fars news agency said the depth of the quake had reduced its impact to the size of a magnitude-4.0 tremor on the surface.
Iranian scientists said it was the country's strongest earthquake for more than 50 years.
All communications to the region have been cut, and the Red Crescent said it was sending 20 search-and-rescue teams with three helicopters to the area.
A resident of Saravan, Yar Ahmad, told BBC Persian that a number of people in the nearby village of Lolokadan had been injured, with broken arms or legs, but only had first aid kits for treatment.
No rescue workers had arrived, and the roads were in poor condition, he said.


Tents and shacks Sistan Baluchistan is Iran's biggest province and one of its most impoverished areas.
A member of parliament for Saravan, Hedayatollah Mir-Morad Zehi, said there were 1,700 villages in the area, and most of the buildings were made of mud.
Many people in the area live in tents or shacks, a factor which is thought to have limited the number of casualties.



Across the border in Pakistan, up to 34 people were killed and about 80 injured in the Mashkel district of Balochistan province, the army said.
Communications were disrupted in Mashkel, which has a population of about 45,000. But aid workers said many houses were thought to have been damaged or destroyed.
The earthquake was felt across the region.
Michael Stephens, a researcher at RUSI Qatar, told the BBC from his office in Doha: "I definitely felt the walls shaking. It lasted for about 25 seconds."
Mohammad Wazir, a correspondent for BBC Persian in Pakistan, says the quake was felt in the cities of Karachi and Quetta.
Tuesday's earthquake was about 180 times stronger in energy release than a 6.3-magnitude quake that struck on 10 April near the nuclear plant at Bushehr in south-western Iran. That quake killed at least 37 people and wounded 850.
The Bushehr plant was not damaged by the earlier earthquake, and an official at the Russian firm that built the plant said it had not been damaged by Tuesday's earthquake either, Reuters reported.
Scientists say earthquakes in south-eastern Iran are triggered by the clash between the Arabia and Eurasia tectonic plates, the former of which is pushing north at a rate of several centimetres each year.
In 2003, a 6.6-magnitude quake destroyed much of the south-eastern city of Bam and killed some 26,000 people.

Nicolas Maduro wins Venezuela presidential election

 Socialist candidate Nicolas Maduro has won a narrow victory in Venezuela's presidential poll.

 

Mr Maduro, who was chosen by the late Hugo Chavez, won 50.7% of the vote against 49.1% for opposition candidate Henrique Capriles

 

The electoral commission said the results were "irreversible".
There has been no comment from Mr Capriles, who earlier on Sunday has suggested there was an attempt to doctor the result.
Mr Maduro told a rally of supporters in the capital Caracas that he had won a "just, legal and constitutional" victory.
However, the margin of victory was far smaller than that gained by the late President Chavez over Mr Capriles at elections last October.
Mr Maduro said he was willing to allow an audit of the election result.
Almost 80% of eligible voters took part in the poll.
Mr Maduro had been serving as acting president since Mr Chavez died of cancer on 5 March.
He is due to be sworn in on 19 April and serve until January 2019 to complete the six-year term that Mr Chavez would have begun in January

 

                Drug company subsidies

State of the Union proposal

"We'll reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies and ask more from the wealthiest seniors."

Background
President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, failed to achieve a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction during negotiations over raising the debt ceiling in summer 2011, an agreement that would've included significant changes to entitlement programs such as Medicare. Reuters reported that Obama's State of the Union proposal to cut subsidies to pharmaceutical companies would mean mandating that companies offer drug rebates to the approximately 10 million Americans who qualify for Medicare and Medicaid while receiving Medicare prescription drug benefits, a group known as "dual eligibles." The Congressional Budget Office projected this proposal would reduce Medicare costs by $137 billion, Reuters says, but it has in the past sparked criticism from the pharmaceutical industry.
Additionally, Obama called for Medicare recipients in higher income brackets to pay a larger share of their Medicare premiums. 

Venezuela: Hunger strikers say government thugs attacked them

Protesters say bikers dressed in Chavez's socialist party colors robbed them and fired guns at them. The government blames Washington.

CARACAS, Venezuela — About 40 hunger strikers camped out in Venezuela's capital city of Caracas came under attack Monday night by what they described as a large group of armed, pro-government activists, leaving at least half a dozen injured after shots were fired.
Demanding clean April 14 presidential elections, the hunger strikers this weekend set up mattresses on a roundabout in a wealthy Caracas district, many of them without eating now for three days.


But some 50 motorbikes descended on their camp, their riders clad in the crimson of late President Hugo Chavez's socialist party followers, protesters told GlobalPost.
The police and socialist party officials did not respond to GlobalPost's requests for comment.
But witnesses and images posted to the internet told of a violent attack, signaling tensions are high during the bitter but brief campaigns to succeed Chavez.
"They were using bikes belonging to the government," said Henry Linares, an 18-year-old student who was taking part in the hunger strike. "They robbed us of our stuff. We have around 10 students injured but we're continuing the fight."
Linares' friend and fellow protester Esteban Galup added: "There were around 50 motorcyclists. They surrounded us."
The protesters said they took refuge at a nearby McDonald's as police and medical assistance arrived.
The students accuse the country's electoral council of a pro-government bias and are calling for a fair election this Sunday, as acting President Nicolas Maduro runs against opposition leader Henrique Capriles.
In Venezuela, after 14 years of Chavez's rule, pro-government still means pro-“Chavismo” — a philosophy that has relied on the country's oil wealth to reduce poverty through a bevy of welfare programs while, opponents say, also muzzling dissent and wrecking the economy. International watchdogs such as Human Rights Watch accused Chavez of stacking the electoral council and the courts with supporters and intimidating or arresting judges suspected of straying from the government line.
Sunday's election and the short campaign preceding it come in the wake of Chavez's death from cancer on March 5.
Unlike in the United States, Venezuelan law calls for a new election after a president dies rather than filling the top executive post with the vice president.
In December, before leaving for an emergency cancer surgery in Cuba, Chavez anointed his faithful deputy Maduro as his preferred heir. That's likely to win Maduro the presidency, according to pollsters.
"We're here demanding that the elections are clean, just and free," said 22-year-old Vanessa Eisig, lying on a mattress alongside other hunger strikers over the weekend. "That's why we're having this hunger strike."
Twitter users posted dramatic messages and pictures of the attack. "We need help," wrote one organizer, Gaby Arellano. "The situation is severe." Her message was accompanied by an image of a protester with blood pouring from a wound on his head.

Google helps bring hotline to human-trafficking battle

Google donates $3 million to launch a global human trafficking hotline.

A $3 million grant from Google helped get an anti-human-trafficking hotline up and running today — the latest data-sharing effort aimed at fighting the growing problem.
The Global Human Trafficking Hotline Network, launched with Google's grant, will allow organizations working in the USA, Southeast Asia and Europe to standardize data, identify trends and combine statistics for a more comprehensive look at the issue.
"Right now, most of the hotlines around the world are doing great work but operating in isolation," said Bradley Myles, CEO of Polaris Project, a non-profit group that runs the U.S. human trafficking hotline. "The fight has to be more thoughtful, so collaboration and partnerships in this field can keep up and get ahead of the innovation of traffickers."
Polaris Project, Liberty Asia, a non-profit group that does work in Southeast Asia, and La Strada International, which focuses on parts of Europe, have been jointly awarded a Google Global Impact Award and will work to stitch together their different hotlines.
Human trafficking, as defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, can be the recruitment, transportation or harboring of people by means of force, deception or coercion. Victims, often mentally and physically abused, can be forced into prostitution, unfair working conditions or other exploitative situations.
Google's Global Impact Awards aim to help innovative people find solutions to large-scale complex problems, said Jacquelline Fuller, director of Google Giving.
Fuller, who spent time in India, became familiar with trafficking and exploitation while visiting that country. In the past few years, Google has given more than $14.5 million to anti-trafficking efforts such as its 2011 grant to Polaris Project and slaveryfootprint.org to raise awareness. Today's announcement aims to further its commitment to trafficking, Fuller said.
"The bad guys have been using technology in a much more savvy way," she said. "They are very savvy and sophisticated in identifying who's vulnerable and evading capture. We want to enable the good guys to use technology in highly leveraged ways, so they can innovate faster than the opposition."
Part of the $3 million will go toward supporting travel, identifying more hotlines and building the technological platforms needed to share data. In the next year, the organizations will share best practices, standardize the types of questions callers are asked, collect data in the same format and communicate regularly with other providers.
Officials hope to add other countries and will use the network to offer training and technical assistance to create hotlines in different parts of the world.
"It's trying to broaden the safety net for survivors," Myles said. "Hotlines work. Now it's a matter of taking the proof and scale that globally. Anywhere a victim is, there (should be a) hotline that covers that area."
Polaris Project has received more than 70,303 calls and 5,600 e-mails since December 2007.
Matt Friedman, technical director of Liberty Asia, hopes to learn from that experience. His organization, which began a year ago, will work with Polaris to establish a regional hotline for Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Burma, Cambodia, Laos and China.
That hotline hopes to mirror the call center of Polaris Project while providing information in multiple Asian languages through a number without long-distance charges.
Friedman stressed that trafficking is a transnational crime that requires good data to combat.
"We have, for example, trafficking victims from Vietnam and Thailand and Cambodia in The United States," Friedman said. "If we are able to link up our networks, we can make sure these people get home safely."

Executions And Death Penalty Figures Revealed

Executions are becoming less acceptable, Amnesty says, but China still puts thousands of convicts to death.

Death sentences are "becoming a thing of the past", according to campaigners, despite at least 682 confirmed executions across the globe last year.

That is just two more executions - including beheadings, hangings and firing squads - than in 2011, according to Amnesty International.
A total of 21 countries were confirmed as having carried out executions in 2012, the same number as in 2011. Amnesty said this was significantly down from levels a decade ago, when 28 countries carried out executions in 2003.
The number of deaths sentences imposed fell from 1,923 in 63 countries in 2011 to 1,722 in 58 countries over the next 12 months.
Amnesty International secretary general Salil Shetty said there was a "worldwide trend against using the death penalty".
"In many parts of the world, executions are becoming a thing of the past," he said.
"Only one in 10 countries in the world carries out executions.
"Their leaders should ask themselves why they are still applying a cruel and inhumane punishment that the rest of the world is leaving behind."
The five countries that carried out the most executions last year were China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and USA, Amnesty said.
But the figures for the total number of death sentences do not include China, which is believed to perform thousands every year, because reliable data is not available.
Some human rights activist claim up to 8,000 people are put to death by the state in China every year.
The US executed 43 people in 2012, the same figure as in the previous year. A total of 77 new death sentences were imposed, the second lowest since the Supreme Court revised capital punishment laws in 1976, Amnesty said.
The latest death sentence was carried out in Texas as the report was published, with Rickey Lewis being put to death by lethal injection for the murder of a man and the rape of his wife during a break-in.
Amnesty expressed concern at a resumption of executions in several countries - India, Japan, Pakistan and Gambia - that had not used the death penalty for some time.
And the organisation flagged an escalation in the number of executions in Iraq in 2012, with the figure up to at least 129, which included 34 executions carried out in a single day.
The 'Deaths Sentences and Executions in 2012' report was released just days after Briton Lindsay Sandiford lost her appeal against her death sentence in Bali for smuggling £1.6m worth of cocaine.

Afghanistan peace deal with Taliban needed, say MPs

The start of an Afghan-led peace deal with the Taliban is needed to secure the future of Afghanistan after British troops leave, a group of MPs has said.

The Defence Select Committee warned that failure to do so could lead to civil war in Afghanistan.
The UK had a responsibility to use its influence to "make Afghanistan work" after 2014, the MPs added.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said the UK would help Afghans to reach "a sustainable political settlement".
The MPs' report focused on the planned withdrawal of UK combat troops at the end of 2014 and the transfer of responsibilities to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).
The committee said it wanted to see:

• Open and free elections
• An appropriately trained and equipped ANSF with continuing financial support
• A strong judicial system that protects human rights
• Continued development aid
• Effective measures to tackle corruption and the drug trade

'Starkly opposing' The committee highlighted significant gaps in the capabilities of the ANSF in areas such as helicopters and close air support and medical care.
Committee chairman James Arbuthnot, said: "We have received starkly opposing predictions for Afghanistan's outlook, post 2014.

“Start Quote

The fact that Afghan security forces are now leading on more than 80% of all security operations across the country shows we are well on the way”

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond

"The fact is that the UK has limited influence. Indeed, it is for the Afghan people themselves to determine their own future.

"However, the UK and its international partners must show the Afghan people that they will abide by their obligations to continue to support them in their efforts."
The MPs said they had received "very little" information about the involvement of the Ministry of Defence and the UK Foreign Office in Afghanistan beyond 2014.


Viable State
There are currently 9,000 British service personnel in Afghanistan, reducing to 5,200 by the end of 2013.
The committee called on the government to provide detailed plans and costs for withdrawal to ensure the protection of military personnel.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said: "I welcome the publication of this report which shares our vision of an Afghanistan that can maintain its own security and never again be a safe haven for international terrorism.
"The fact that Afghan security forces are now leading on more than 80% of all security operations across the country shows we are well on the way to achieving that aim."
He added: "The UK is dedicated to helping the Afghan government make progress towards a sustainable political settlement and a stable regional environment, and to help the Afghan people build a viable Afghan state.
"We will continue to support governance and development in Afghanistan through the next decade, with £178m per year of development aid agreed until 2017, to ensure that the progress made will not be lost."

The fact that Afghan security forces are now leading on more than 80% of all security operations across the country shows we are well on the way”

                                                                        ......Defence Secretary Philip Hammond

Why did daddy kill that girl? Backpacker murder suspect's wife tells of children's disbelief

Sarah Groves, 24, was stabbed 40 times in Kashmir on Saturday morning

Dutch national Richard de Wit has confessed to the brutal murder

Wife of de Wit says he had become 'increasingly paranoid and irrational'

De Wit abandoned wife and two children to go travelling six months ago.    

    

                                                                                                                                              

The wife of the Dutch tourist accused of murdering a British backpacker in India yesterday told how her children had asked her: ‘Why has daddy killed that woman?’
Thai bride Uma Rupanya said her husband of ten years, Richard de Wit, had become increasingly paranoid and psychotic before abandoning the family six months ago to go travelling.
The first she learned of her husband’s alleged crime was when Dutch officers arrived to tell her that de Wit, 43, had confessed to the murder of former public schoolgirl Sarah Groves, 24, on a houseboat.
Miss Groves, a fitness instructor from Guernsey, was stabbed 45 times in a frenzied 15-minute knife attack at Lake Dal, near Kashmir’s capital Srinagar.
Yesterday Miss Rupanya, who is blind in one eye and suffers from multiple sclerosis, said she does not know what to say to her two daughters, aged 12 and ten.
‘I want to protect them but don’t know how,’ she said.
Jobless de Wit, said to be 7ft tall, fled the murder scene in a stolen rowing boat, which capsized before he swam to shore.
He was arrested by police, dripping wet, with £2,000 stuffed in his underwear and wearing no shoes, 50 miles away.
According to Indian police, he later said he murdered Miss Groves after being taken over by the devil.
Yesterday, Miss Rupanya, 31, said she was in a state of shock and felt immense sorrow for Miss Groves’s family. She told the Daily Mail: ‘My husband left us in November. He was seeing a psychiatrist but had become increasingly irrational and paranoid.

 

More...

• 'We begged her not to go': Tears of Sarah's father as he reveals he pleaded with her to stay away from Indian houseboat where she was stabbed to death
• 'The devil took over my body'... says the 7ft Dutchman accused of stabbing to death 'wonderful' British tourist, 24, on Indian houseboat
• British backpacker fought desperately for her life as 'Dutch killer' knifed her 45 times, doctors reveal

‘He believed the Government was out to get him, that spies were following him, that the house was bugged.
‘He had stopped taking his anti-psychotic medication also.
'He said he had to leave for his and our safety. I was very worried about him but never expected something like this to happen.
‘It’s just so awful. He was a good father to our children, he was never violent towards me and he did not take drugs, although I have heard that he started to smoke cannabis after he left us.

‘I feel angry as he left me with a few thousands euros to live on, he knew I couldn’t work or provide for the children myself because of my disability. 

'I just have to try to be strong and be a good mother the best I can but it is a very dark time for us.

‘My children are very angry too. They ask me “why has daddy killed that woman?” I don’t know what to say. I want to protect them but don’t know how.’

De Wit, a former councillor for an extreme right-wing party in his home town of Ridderkerk, met his wife while on holiday in Thailand 13 years ago when he went into her brother’s clothes shop where she worked as a sales assistant.

They had their two daughters before marrying in November 2002.  At the time, Miss Rupanya was seriously ill after giving birth to their second child so the ceremony took place from her hospital bed in Rotterdam’s Erasmus Hospital.

Speaking from the tiny apartment they shared together in the town of Capelle aan den Ijssel, she said: ‘Richard never worked. He stayed at home and played on the computer. 

'At the weekend he would take our children to the museum.
‘After he left us, he would phone and email to see how we were. But I felt very let down.
‘The last time I spoke to him was two days before the murder. He seemed OK and said he was enjoying India. I still can’t believe this has happened.’
De Wit, who has two children from a previous relationship, posted a rambling video online shortly before he left for India detailing his delusional fears that the Dutch authorities were after him and were trying to frame him for a fictitious bomb plot.
He remains in custody in India.